A Bit About Me

Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".

25 January 2014

Jailed Man's YouTube Video Reaches One Million "Self Hits" in Two Months

Photo of Paul Bremis inside police cruiser.

A man in prison posts a YouTube video - and it gets a million hits. Most
of them his.

Yes, believe it or not, a man in a Chicago prison uploaded a video of
himself watching a video of himself and it went viral - but not in the way you'd
think.

Paul Bremis, who is serving a six-month sentence for a traffic violation in
which he not only failed to yield to merging traffic but also did not have a
valid license, decided he would make the most of his incarceration. "I figured
I'm in jail, I have a lot of time on my hands, why not do something fun?"

The video which Bremis, 24, uploaded to YouTube, shows himself being pulled
over by police and subsequently led away. But, Bremis decided to give the video
a bit of spin by changing the dialogue and then showing himself watching the
video ranting and raving that everything he said on the police dashcam was
altered.

Confused yet? Hold on, there's more.

Bremis then set out to get the video to go viral but all his attempts at
directing traffic to it (no pun intended) via Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter
failed to yield (again no pun intended) the desired hits.

"I thought it was a funny video. I see a lot of stuff on Facebook and
other social media sites that really suck and they go viral. I figured if mine
goes viral, maybe I can get a bunch of sympathetic stupid people giving me money and then I'd be able to buy a new car or something." Bremis said yesterday. "Seems
like people will give other people money over the dumbest things they do wrong,
and I figured I might as well jump at my chance. Hell, for all I know this
might be the only time in my life I'll ever get arrested."

But, Bremis' plan backfired when, after a week, the video only had 12
hits...10 of them his own.

"That's when I got an idea." Bremis said. "I figured if I can keep
clicking on the video, I can keep getting hits registered and then when it gets
enough hits, it will go viral and I'll end up on 'Good Morning America' where the big money is. I wasn't going anywhere all day and night
anyway, so I got nothing to lose."

After two months of constant clicking his video finally reached one million
hits. "I thought it was going to take a lot longer." Bremis stated, "I'm no
math whiz, but I thought I wouldn't be able to pull it off. They always told
us things in school like it would take you 2000 years to count all the interest
a million dollars makes, you know, if you started counting it right now. And,
as a kid, you believe that stuff. But this totally proves them wrong. I mean,
here it is, two months later and I have over a million hits, most of them
my own."

And the Chicago City Jail collaborates those figures. "I wouldn't have
believed it myself." Chief Warden Anthony Bruglia, stated. "Bremis is right
about the math they teach you in school. It has to be wrong. I never would
have guessed he could click that many times just sitting here in jail. It kinda
gives everyone else here hope in a way, I think. You know, that they can
achieve something no one ever imagined."

As far as that money for a new car? Donations to Bremis' PayPal account
are already totaling in excess of $54,000.